A memorial to the pets lost in the Marshall Fire, erected in October 2024 in Louisville, Colorado (KGNU / John Kelin).
There have been some unusually windy days in Boulder County recently, and they’ve put a lot of people on edge. Tensions were compounded by at least one brush fire, which prompted evacuation orders in parts of Louisville and Lafayette. Fortunately, the fire was quickly contained by Mountain View Fire Rescue, and the evacuation orders were lifted.
Those winds coincided with the fourth anniversary of the Marshall Mesa Fire, which remains one of the most destructive wildfires in Colorado history. The Marshall Mesa Fire devastated large swaths of Boulder County on December 30th, 2021. The winds that day gusted in excess of 100mph and were a major contributor to the fire’s intensity. When it was all over, two lives were lost, more than a thousand homes and commercial buildings were destroyed, and many others were severely damaged. The similarities between that day, and our more recent windy days, were unmistakable…